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All business owner/managers have an unwavering passion for their business – and that usually comes out in many forms — often in the form of a company newsletter (online and/or offline). And, now that Summer is over, chances are you (and all of those other entrepreneurs like you) are kick-starting your newsletter distribution.

But before you start sharing your wisdom with your audience, take a few moments and develop for yourself a 6 month editorial calendar – that identifies the topics you are going to be sharing with your readers. This is a wonderfully useful tool to help you get and/or keep organized when you’re caught up in the day-to-day challenges of running your business. If nothing else, it means that you don’t have to scramble at the “last minute” to come up with an idea or develop content. But, it also helps to ensure that you can reinforce messages that are important to you and your audience.

Here are a few ‘best practices’ to help you develop a powerful editorial calendar:

Build each newsletter around one topic per issue. This allows you to demonstrate to your readers that you bring depth to the topics you explore. The theme should be expanded beyond the newsletter too. For example, if you’re speaking at a conference/workshop, reinforce the topic you are speaking about in the communication piece(s) that you are sending around the time of your presentation.

Be sensitive to seasonality. In other words, your readers have different topics/challenges/solutions that they want to read about at different times of the year. For example, if you have a retail component to your business/service, address holiday-specific topics in October/November/December.

Build in to your calendar topics that allow others — like your colleagues, industry experts and clients — to contribute their insights. Allowing this type of content can save you time as well as provide you with an additional element of credibility.